Wyatt v. Aderholt

• Decision Date: 08 November 1974
• Docket Number: No. 72-2634,72-2634
• Citation: 503 F.2d 1305
• Parties: Ricky WYATT, By and Through his aunt and legal guardian Mrs. W. C. Rawlins, Jr., et al., etc., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Charles ADERHOLT, as Commissioner of Mental Health, et al., Defendants, The Alabama Mental Health Board, an Agency of the State of Alabama, and George C. Wallace, as Governor of Ala., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1305

503 F.2d 1305

Ricky WYATT, By and Through his aunt and legal guardian Mrs.

W. C. Rawlins, Jr., et al., etc., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Charles ADERHOLT, as Commissioner of Mental Health, et al.,

Defendants, The Alabama Mental Health Board, an Agency of

the State of Alabama, and George C. Wallace, as Governor of

Ala., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 72-2634.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Nov. 8, 1974.

Charles M. Crook, Montgomery, Ala., for Gov. Wallace.

William Baxley, Atty. Gen., George Beck, Deputy Atty. Gen., Montgomery, Ala., for Ala. Mental Health Board.

George W. Dean, Jr., Destin, Fla., Shelly Mercer, Nat'l. Health & Environmental Program, School of Law, UCLA, Los Angeles, Cal., Jack Drake, Tuscaloosa, Ala., Morton Birnbaum, Brooklyn, N.Y., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Paul Friedman, Patricia M. Wald, Mental Health Law Project, Washington, D.C., for Nat. Council on the Rights of the Mentally Impaired.

Bruce Ennis, New York City, for NCRMI & Am. Psy. Assoc., and others.

Stanley Herr, NLADA, Nat. Law Office, James F. Fitzpatrick, Jeffrey Bauman, Washington, D.C., Ira DeMent, U.S. Atty., Kenneth E. Vines, Asst. U.S. Atty., Montgomery, Ala., Edward Lynch, President's Committee on Mental Retardation, Washington, D.C., for United States.

Robert H. Johnson, Atty., Civil Rights Div., U.S. Dept. of Justice, Louis M. Thrasher, Associate Director, Washington, D.C., for United States, amicus curiae.

Charles R. Halpern, Center for Law & Social Policy, Washington, D.C., for Mental Health Law Project, amicus curiae.

Warren E. Magee, Washington, D.C., for Amer. Psychiatric Association, amicus curiae.

Sheridan Neimark, Washington, D.C., for NSAC, amicus curiae.

Before WISDOM, BELL and COLEMAN, Circuit Judges.

WISDOM, Circuit Judge:

In this case, we must decide whether federal district courts have the power to order state mental institutions to provide minimum levels of psychiatric care and treatment ¹ to persons civilly committed to the institutions.

The guardians of patients civilly committed to three Alabama facilities for the mentally handicapped brought this class action on behalf of their wards and other civilly committed patients at those institutions. The Honorable Frank M. Johnson, trial judge, held that mentally ill patients 'have a constitutional right to receive such individual treatment as will give each of them a reasonable opportunity to be cured or to improve his or her mental condition'. Wyatt v. Stickney, M.D.Ala.1971, 325 F.Supp. 781, 784. In a later order, Judge Johnson held that the mentally retarded patients have a constitutional right to 'such individual habilitation as will give each of them a realistic opportunity to lead a more useful and meaningful life and to return to society'. Wyatt v. Stickney, M.D.Ala.1972, 344 F.Supp. 387, 390. The district court found that conditions at the three facilities deprived the plaintiffs of these constitutional rights, and ordered the defendants-appellants, Alabama officials responsible for the administration of the state's mental health programs, to implement a detailed set of standards designed to ensure the provision of minimally adequate treatment and habilitation at the institutions. From this order, the Alabama Mental Health Board and Alabama's Governor George C. Wallace bring separate appeals.

Together, the Mental Health Board and the Governor advance six major contentions on appeal. They contend (1) that the district court erred in holding that civilly committed mental patients have a constitutional right to treatment; (2) that the court lacked jurisdiction because the suit was in effect a suit against the state proscribed by the eleventh amendment; (3) that the case involves rights and duties not susceptible to determination by judicially ascertainable and manageable standards, and therefore presents a non-justiciable controversy; (4) that the order of the district court invades a province of decision-making exclusively reserved to the state legislature; (5) that the plaintiffs were not entitled to equitable relief because they had adequate remedies at law to protect the rights they asserted; and (6) that the district court erred in awarding plaintiffs a reasonable attorneys' fee.

Neither in the district court nor on appeal to this Court have the defendants challenged the detailed set of standards articulated by the district court. They have conceded that if there is a constitutional right to treatment enforceable by a suit for injunctive relief in federal court, those standards accurately reflect what would be required to ensure the provision of adequate treatment.

I.

A. The proceedings below

This case began innocuously enough, when a cut in the Alabama cigarette tax forced the state to fire 99 professional, subprofessional, and intern employees ² at the Bryce Hospital, a state-run institution for the mentally ill at Tuscaloosa. The plaintiffs filed their complaint October 23, 1970. The complaint named two classes as plaintiffs. One, represented by Ricky Wyatt and two other named plaintiffs, appellees here, consisted of the patients at Bryce. The other, represented by five of the then recently terminated employees, consisted of the employees who had been dismissed for budgetary reasons. The defendants were Stonewall B. Stickney, then Executive Officer of the Alabama State Mental Health Board; Dr. John V. Hottel, his Chief Deputy; the members of the Board; then Governor Albert P. Brewer, both in his capacity as Governor and in his capacity as a member of the Board; and Judge Perry O. Hooper, Probate Judge of Montgomery County, both individually and as a representative of the class consisting of all probate judges in Alabama.

The complaint alleged that the defendants had effected the staff reductions purely for budgetary reasons; that the discharges of the 99 employees had been accomplished without notice and a hearing, and violated the employees' rights under the due process clause; and that as a result of the discharges the patients at Bryce would not receive adequate treatment. The complaint sought injunctive relief requiring the defendants to insure that treatment programs then being administered at Bryce would not be interrupted or altered, and requiring the defendants to rescind the terminations of the 99 employees.

The original complaint did not allege that treatment levels at Bryce had been inadequate before the terminations. For reasons not entirely clear from the record before us, however, the focus of the litigation soon shifted from the effects of the October 1970 terminations to questions of the overall adequacy of the treatment afforded at the Alabama state mental hospitals. On January 4, 1971, the plaintiffs amended the complaint to add prayers that the defendants be enjoined from operating Bryce 'in a manner that does not conform to constitutional standards of delivering adequate mental treatment to its patients'; that the Court order defendants to prepare a 'comprehensive constitutionally acceptable plan to provide adequate treatment in any state mental health facility'; and that the court declare that patients confined to a state mental helath facility are entitled to 'adequate, competent treatment'.

On March 12, 1971, the district court ruled on the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction. 325 F.Supp. 781. The court's opinion reflected the shift in the focus of the case. In its opinion, the court declared that patients 'involuntarily committed through noncriminal procedures and without the constitutional protections that are afforded defendants in criminal proceedings' are 'committed for treatment purposes' and so 'unquestionably have a constitutional right to receive such individual treatment as will give each of them a relaistic opportunity to be cured or to improve his or her mental condition'. 325 F.Supp. at 784. The court found that the treatment programs in effect before the institution of a staff reorganization then in progress were 'scientifically and medically inadequate', failing to 'conform to any known minimums established for providing treatment for the mentally ill'. Id. The court stated that it was not at that time in a position to determine whether the treatment which would be provided after the reorganization was completed would be adequate. Accordingly, the court allowed the defendants ninety days to report progress made in the reorganization plan, and to file with the Court a 'specific plan' for the provision of adequate treatment at Bryce. Also in the March 12 order, the court invited the United States, through the Department of Justice and Health, Education and Welfare, to appear as amicus.

On August 4, 1971, the plaintiffs amended their complaint to allege that the Search Hospital at Mount Vernon, Alabama, the one other state hospital for the mentally ill in Alabama, and the Partlow State School and Hospital, Alabama's state facility for the mentally retarded, were being operated in a constitutionally impermissible manner.

On September 13, 1971, six months after the March 12 order, the defendants filed their report on proposed standards of adequate treatment and their implementation. Objections to the report were later filed by the plaintiffs and by the United States, as well as by several interested private organizations which had been granted leave to appear as amici. ³

The court announced its conclusions upon review of the report and the objections to it in an opinion issued December 10, 1971. 334 F.Supp. 1341. In this opinion, the district court held that there are three 'fundamental conditions for adequate and effective treatment': a 'humane physical and psychological environment'; qualified staff 'in numbers sufficient to administer adequate treatment'; and individualized treatment plans. The court held that the reports before it showed 'rather conclusively' that the treatment programs at Bryce did not meet any of these conditions. It also noted...